


of songbirds and serpents

by mightingquills



Series: The Knight of Walpurgis [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Aurora Crawford deserved better, Avery´s anger issues make bakugou look nice, Bittersweet Ending, F/M, Laurent Rosier is also a lil bitch, Laurent Rosier is french sad and bi, Lovers To Enemies, Multi, Not that slowburn, Tom Riddle following the toxic bf handbook, Tom Riddle is His Own Warning, maybe ooc riddle, the Knights of Walpurgis - Freeform, the knights of dark academia, the writer is not a native english speaker
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 17:41:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29920488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mightingquills/pseuds/mightingquills
Summary: we were young and cruel and we wanted to be endless, it was 1943.
Relationships: Albus Dumbledore & Original Female Character(s), Albus Dumbledore & Tom Riddle, Death Eater Characters & Tom Riddle, Tom Riddle/Original Female Character(s), Walburga Black & Original Character(s), original male characters & original male characters
Series: The Knight of Walpurgis [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2200299
Kudos: 1





	of songbirds and serpents

Sometimes, Aurora Crawford would wonder if it's normal to be unwell all the time. If feeling too big for your own body is how everyone feels. She used to equate that with magic before Hogwarts but her peers seemed quite comfortable with their bones and flesh. 

Hogwarts, where she feels the least lonely and the least strange. Summer went by like a breeze and classes knocked on her door sooner than expected, fifth year seemed so far away back then. 

She could still remember her first time on Kings Cross, how anxious and excited and frightened she was. How she almost danced in the crowded station instead of walking and how mortified her parents were. And how it wouldn't matter if they spent her last moments before boarding to her next great journey scolding about her manners. 

Prometheus and Clarice Crawford were pure blooded, wealthy and educated. Known for their grand house and an enormous collection of dark artefacts. Beauty and tragedy followed that family wherever they went. The couple had no male heir but that didn't matter, Aurora Crawford was talented, fair haired and lovely, like the princess in a fairy tale. 

“Behave, be polite to your professors, sure you got your toothbrush, write home at least once a week and”, Clarice Crawford was the kind to lecture her daughter in the same matter more than what's required, unfortunately to her family, the woman usually over worried about, most things. 

“Mom”, Aurora complained, trying to free herself from her mother´s spiralling and reach her belongings, the girl was not strong enough to carry it alone but she certainly had the stubbornness. 

“Stay out of trouble and”

“Mom!”, Aurora made herself heard, “I´ll be fine, and I need to catch the train and it´s Hogwarts, what could possibly happen?”

“Your daughter is right, Lice”, her father said giving Aurora a nod and a smile, “But remember our agreement, little bird, take-”

“Take my potion, i know. Can I go now?”, the young one said with barely standing still, she was too filled with excitement to brim for that. 

Prometheus said yes and before they could hold her back, Aurora was already running off inside like the flighthy little thing she was. The last image of her was golden hair messy as she entered the train. 

“Aurora, she is so grown and ”, Clarice told her husband as watched the Hogwarts Express leave. 

"She's too much like him to give me any kind of comfort, brilliant but cursed”

She met Florence Greengrass and Minerva Mcgonagall in one of the wagons her first year, they shared the journey till third year. Aurora sat alone with a book this time, the girl always liked reading and being alone and if told herself enough, she would start believing that she prefers it that way. 

There was peace in watching as the horizon morphs right before her eyes. The London-like foggy side with it´s grey skies and greyer people, the countryside with vibrants green and landscapes. Almost four hours to the school where the view was an ever changing painting and the windshield, it´ s framing

The familiar sounds fainted laughter and conversations were both warm and sharp on the Ravenclaw girl. It made her long for a knit group of friends that held itself together, an aching Aurora learned to function with, but still, an ache. 

It's not like she was completely alone. For the notice, Aurora was perfectly able to make small talk with Anthony Winston, a fellow Ravenclaw, on the carriage. She was on good terms with all of her roommates , Florence Greengrass still sits with her in class and although Minerva Mcgonagall was always busy with quidditch or prefect duty, they talked, sort of. 

Anthony Winston was a weird kind of Ravenclaw, the boy was over excited and so hyperactive one might think he was in a constant state of sugar rush. He liked painting and photography and hated schoolwork. He truly was like Aurora, always on the search for knowledge of the last likely kind. 

The Great Hall would always be a sight for sore eyes with gothic architecture and enchanted scene ceiling, Aurora was so entranced by the beauty and awe she had to slow her pace. She would be a seventh year soon and it still starstrucks her so much it's hard to stay vertical. 

It's Hogwarts, thought the girl, no matter what it stands, it endures. The Sorting Ceremony, Professor Dippet´s welcoming speech, nothing ever changes and Aurora hoped it never would. 

Across the Great Hall there was a boy hoping for the opposite. Tom Marvollo Riddle, someone practically perfect for the untrained eye. Charming and clever and Slytherin´s Prefect. Deemed talented and promising by his professors, distant and pitiful but admirable by the students, Tom longed for change. And he was going to bring it with his bare magic hands. 

The Slytherin Prefect found himself at last back to Hogwarts, dining with his so-called friends at the Great Hall, way from that filthy hell house called Wool's Orphanage. While Malfoy, Lestrange and the others went to southern Italy and France, he stayed in and read, drank disgusting coffee and waited for the weeks to pass. 

All that reading was useful to him, specially The Principles of the Soul, by Atlas Crawford, it answered several questions and left new ones, boiling in his mind. 

And perhaps that's why he also found himself searching across the room, landing at the Ravenclaw´s table with his eyes. The blonde one, Crawford, maybe related to one who could provide him the rest of the information he needed to cheat death. 

“I don't believe him, and neither should you, Florence. There's no way Malfoy did that”, the amused voice of Walburga Black echoed, every single thing that girl said felt like a challenge. 

“But I did, I asked ‘the pretty french girl’ out”, Abraxas Malfoy responded to the not so friendly teasing and tried to keep his platinum blonde locks off his face.

“I´m sorry”, Florence Greengrass said, barely taking her focus from the meal.

“Why would you be sorry?”

“I'm assuming she said no”, Greengrass finally looked at Abraxas with, revealing that perhaps it was just friendly teasing from the girls.

“She said yes”

“I'm sorry for her”, 

And they laughed, the like stupid teenagers they were. Of course, they were beautiful and privileged and hungry, they were violent and rich. But they were naive. 

Tom always knew he was different. Not because he was half-blood and not pureblood. Not because he was poor. Not because he was clever. 

He was beautiful just like them but his beauty cuts like the sharp edge of a knife. He was marble and looked like the finest sculptures. Handsome but cold. There was nothing innocent about him.


End file.
